At Her Service was thoroughly enjoyable! I loved that the entire cast of characters was incredibly diverse. As someone who read and loved For Her Consideration, I adored getting to delve more into Max and her story, and getting an extra continuation of Nina and Ari’s story as well! The character development Max goes through is great, and I like that she recognizes her own flaws and owns up to the parts she’s played in her own stagnation. She gets in her own way, and I think that’s something deeply relatable, especially as a queer person. Overall I thought this was an excellent book, and Max and Sadie’s story was wonderful to be privy to.

Spalding does it again with another sweet sapphic romance pulling at the heart strings! I loved Max and Sadie's story, one of them so sure of what she wants to do in life (but nervous about whether she can pull it off), and the other who thinks she knows what she wants, but maybe needs a little nudge in a direction that better suits her skills. And the two of them compliment each other so well! On another note, Spalding always writes about LA with such love, and this one was no different. The city truly is another character in this story, in the best way possible, and I loved how the bar's history was a part of that here. I highly recommend this book!

God, I love Amy Spalding! After reading For Her Consideration, I was really excited for whatever came next. I'm also a lesbian with a particular affinity for fame or Hollywood or performance centered romance, I also love when a great book carries on into a series with another character that we loved- which Max was perfect for. I loved the banter and the build of relationship, it felt natural and authentic. I will say that the miscommunication plot point felt a little awkward and unnatural between the two. I still loved this one though, definitely a new sapphic favorite.

I really wanted to like this book. I put it off for so long and finally got it and I was disappointed. I just don't think the writing styles is for me. I felt kinda bored throughout the entire story and just disconnected from the characters.

This was a really sweet read. I really enjoyed watching Max's journey to "self actualization". My only wish for this book is that we got more Sadie. I feel like I didn't get to spend enough time together with them as a couple, but I loved their connection and wanted more!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGallery for this copy. I fell in love this book. the charaters chemistry was so good. I love everything the author puts out and can't wait to read more in the future.

Max Van Doren is stuck in every area of her life and she’s tired of it. Tired of being unsure of her next career move despite being a great assistant to a huge Hollywood talent agent. Tired of hiding in her bedroom while her queer influencer roommate hangs out with her cool group of friends. Tired of being hopelessly head over heels for her favorite bartender Sadie, who she’ll never have a chance with. And the worst part of it all? Max knows exactly what she wants but is completely clueless about how to get there.

So she can’t resist agreeing when her roommate offers her the chance to have a complete life overhaul for free through a new self-actualization app. The only catch? Completely exposing herself and documenting every step of the journey. However, despite the entire internet knowing Max’s inadequacies the app does seem to be helping. And stepping out of her comfort zone is starting to pay off. That is until a video is posted that twists Max’s good intentions into selfish wants and sends her spiraling. Can Max salvage her relationship with Sadie, save her job, and fix her friendships before her fairy god-app vanishes? Or will her life turn back into nights alone with microwaved burritos at midnight?

I enjoyed this book. I had read the sister book to this one, For Her Consideration, last year so I jumped at the chance to pick up At Her Service early. And I was not disappointed at all. Something about Amy Spalding’s writing hooks me instantly and I find myself just blowing through her books. This was a mix of relatable characters, great writing and an ever-shifting plot perfectly blended into a fun, flirty, and layered rom-com.

Max’s mix of nihilism and optimism highlights being a queer 20-something in today’s wild world. She is somehow completely contradictory yet perfectly complimentary to herself and it leads to a character that feels like she has stolen the thoughts from your head. Not to mention the short masc rep which is so needed in sapphic books. As a short person, I felt very, very seen and yes that does make me a little biased but I’ll take it.

Her plight of seeking romantic and platonic connections felt very true to her character and the struggles of so many new adults. In my opinion, finding romance is easier than finding family through friendships so to see the book give a lot of attention to that aspect felt all too real. And the masc for masc representation? Sheer perfection.

The plot was spot-on, as expected. The book never stalled or dragged in any place because there were so many different subplots going on. There is Max and Sadie’s friendship turned to romance as the main focal point. But there was also Max’s roommate Chelsea who sponsored her for the app and their dysfunctional dynamics. There was Max’s weird relationship with her coworkers and feeling unseen in her work environment. There was Max’s internal battle for self-confidence and believing in her abilities. There was Max’s struggle to find friends and feeling lonely. And to top it off trying to save a historic queer bar!! All of these plot points may sound overwhelming at first glance but they were woven together in a way that was layered and human rather than jumbled and random.

All in all, I highly recommend this book if you are generally a fan of sapphic rom-coms. I think this read is exactly what it looks like in the best of ways. You know the general idea of what you’re getting and it does follow a typical romance guide. However, it still finds ways to surprise and enthrall you that are unique to the story and characters. If you like heartwarming and relatable stories about sapphic love then you are in the right place. Happy reading!

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for sending this eARC for review consideration. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

For more sapphic reviews follow @the.lebian.library on Instagram, Goodreads, and Tiktok.

This wasn’t too bad. Definitely cute in some ways! For once I would like to see someone stay with Joyce and so good and get a promotion without having to leave.

I feel like there was some information that was missing from the narrative and some that was in the book that might not have been needed.

I definitely feel that people will be able to relate to the characters. I will openly admit that I glanced over the sex scenes but only because I was more interested in finding out what happened next. I most likely will reread those scenes.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC

I was happily surprised to enjoy At Her Service significantly more than the first book in the series. Max was a sympathetic main character, and I loved following the personal growth journey she went on. I did get a little frustrated with the ending as it related to her roommate, who I wished had got more of a comeuppance, and the storyline about getting the bar heritage listed didn't make a lot of sense to me - they didn't seem to acknowledge that by doing that, they were screwing over the owner of the bar who now wouldn't be able to so readily sell it. (Don't get me wrong, I'm all for heritage listing, but since they were both close to the owner this seemed a little strange to me).

Max Van Doren is an assistant at a top talent agency in Hollywood. She fears no one takes her serious because of her small size.
She is crushing on the sexy bartender at her favorite queer bar. But doesn’t have the courage to tell her.
With the help of her roommate she does a viral self help program to reach her goals. Will this help or turn her world upside down?
I enjoyed reading this, the characters are realistic and down to earth.. A romantic read that’s sexy and funny.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Kensington for the chance to read and review this one.

So, this one is a bit difficult to write a review for. On one hand, there were a lot of aspects of this story that I really enjoyed - I liked the self-actualisation aspect, and I found Max to be a pretty relatable in wanting more for her life in terms of having queer friends and community. I think some people would probably find Max a bit irritating, because she's complaining she wants friends and yet she does have a friend that invites her out to drinks frequently, and a roommate that's always inviting her to join her in friend hangouts that Max just turns down each time -but like, I related to that too unfortunately.

I also liked that this was a butch4butch romance - although neither character seems to identify that way and the word butch is NEVER used in the actual story, so maybe it's disingenuous to advertise the book as butch4butch. Don't want to label people with labels they themselves don't use, even if those people are fictional. But I did enjoy that neither character was super fem, because no offense to femmes, but sometimes I just want to read a Sapphic romance that's just about women that don't give a fuck about femininity.

And another thing I liked about this book was it's setting. It's set in LA, and I'm sure I've read other books set in LA before, but this one wrote about LA in the same way other authors write about London and New York. Like, I've read SO many books set in London and New York that just drop place mentions and complain about little things about living there, and go on dates to interesting places in those cities. And any other book I've read set in LA have just been about rich people in rich houses taking chauffeured cars to expensive restaurants, right? But this one feels more like those New York and London books, about a working-class person's commute to and from work and the bars she frequents, and I did like that. The date spots she and Sadie visited to were fun to hear about too.

Problems I have with this book: I think this is being advertised as a romance genre book and it isn't that. Like there IS a romance in it, but maybe 30% of the plot is dedicated to that romance, and the rest is fully just about Max learning to sort her life out and gain some confidence. So if you like character-driven story you'll probably still like this, but if you're looking for a romance-centric romance book, you'll probably get bored.

And talking about being bored. This book is apparently 320 pages long, but to me it felt like 600. It was SO long. The first 25% really drags, and then I got really into the story from the 25%-65% mark, but at that point I thought, okay cool so the story should be wrapping up around now, only to realise that I'd only just hit the 70% mark and there were like 3 and a half hours of reading left ahead of me. And maybe if the book had divided itself into 3 parts - like a Before You Point Oh, You Point Oh, and After You Point Oh - that might have helped in some way? But I cannot stress enough that it took me an entire week to read this book, and I would usually be able to read a 300 page book in 2 or 3 days - and I didn't mind the writing style or find it difficult to read! It just felt SO long! I was so tempted to just skim-read the last 30%, but I refrained. But I really think aspects of this story could have just been cut out completely to make it shorter and focus on more important plot points (and focus more on the romance) instead of just following a character in her day-to-day life trying to like make her life look more like her vison board of whatever. Like, I also think the two sex scenes in the book (which both happen around the 70% mark) just did not fit in with the tone of the rest of the plot at all (because, again, this doesn't FEEL like a romance book), and should probably have just been fade-to-black sex scenes.

And another thing I didn't love was how the character's weren't fully described in how they look on introduction. Like Max would describe how the character's hair style or clothes looked, and then pages or even chapters later would drop "oh and she has dark skin" or "oh and she's plus-sized" and like. It's just a personal preference, but it's nice if the author just fully describes what the character looks like from the get go so I know how to picture them fully in my head. I feel like this book is going to get advertised as a butch4butch story with a plus-sized love interest, and I fully did not realise Sadie was meant to be fat (or even just curvy) until like the first aborted sex-scene where Max said Sadie's tshirts hide her curves.

On the topic of the writing style - I didn't mind it. I did get engrossed with it at times. But at some point I noticed that the word "laugh" was used SO often - like Max would just say something innocuous, and suddenly "everyone cracked up laughing", and I was reading it thinking, okay well it wasn't THAT funny, but yeah I can see it was meant to be a joke. At some point I gave up and just searched the book to see how many times the word laugh and it's iterations are used, and it's 181 times. This book is 320 pages long and uses the word laugh 181 times - that's 1.7 laughs per page. At some point it just felt like this book was trying to gaslight me into thinking it's funnier than it is. Like, it did manage to get SOME laughs out of me - there's maybe 3 parts I found worth chuckling over - but it wasn't worth 181 laughs. And once you notice something like that about a book it's really difficult not to constantly get distracted by it.

So, yeah, it's difficult to decide between a 3 and a 4 star for me. I did really like aspects of it, but writing this review I definitely have more things I disliked than I had realised.

First, thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for the ARC!
I don’t always love romance, but this was such a good book! Reading this at the start of a new year, when everyone wants to start fresh, was also very refreshing. I loved that the plot was centered around romance, but Max’s story also relied heavily on self-improvement, her career and social life. Max was one of the most relatable characters I’ve read about. As someone in their mid-twenties, I can relate to feeling lost and behind in life. This was a light-hearted, related and comforting read!

Amy Spalding is a knockout romance writer. If you're not reading her romances, you need to look at your life and make better choices. AT HER SERVICE is no exception. Max and Sadie are so easy to relate to and root for and damn hot. I don't live in LA but I love how Spalding makes the city a character and an integral part of all her books and it's no different here. This book digs into socioeconomic issues, class, and influencer culture while also being so grounded in a deeply satisfying love story.
Love it, love it!

This book is a fun read for both fans of Spalding’s last hollywood romance, For Her Consideration, and new readers alike. Featuring a character from FHC and building on that universe, it has fun easter eggs for fans while also working as a standalone new adult romance. This book does a lot well in terms of character development, and plotting. I liked the way that it showed some of the discordance between the way Max saw herself, the way others saw Max, and the way Max saw others, it felt really real to being in your mid-20s and feeling sort of stuck even if you’re “successful” on paper. It was fun to have a romance that also explored friendship, career, and self-image in a thoughtful way. For me, sadly, the romance was the weakest part. The chemistry and build up just didn’t quite get there for me, and it was the part of the story that I cared the least about. This might be my own thing where friends/acquaintances to lovers and miscommunications are just not my favorite tropes, but things just felt a little too obvious at times. Overall I still would recommend this book, had a good time, and look forward to reading more from Spalding.

This was my second Amy Spalding book and probably my last. I really didn't click with this one either, I was so detached from the characters, which was also the case with the previous book "For her consideration" and it felt very repetitive when it comes to the theme of those books. It wasn't necessarily bad either but I don't think I'm a fan of their writing nor their characters. And I'm not from LA so a lot of things were confusing as hell. 2.5 stars

“At Her Service” was such a cute romance and I read it so fast, but I think I still enjoyed “For Her Consideration” more. The characters reminded me a lot of Casey McQuiston's “One Last Stop”, so if you liked that one, you'll probably like this one too. The love story between Sadie and Max was so refreshing from both sides but it was Max’s friendships that shone for me, the different connections she had with each of them was so lovely in their own ways. Max is such a relatable character as she wants to move ahead at work, make friends and have a long lasting loving relationship. Sadie has dreams of her own. Sadie and Max learn to lean on each other and trust each other. It is great to see the relationship develop and grow. I liked how they described Johnny’s as community and worked to save it. I definitely wanted to shake Max at the beginning of the book, but we've all been stuck in our rut at points. Sadie the bartender is a shy, humble, great person that you will be cheering for. I wished we had more of Sadie and Max at the end of the book. I loved when Ari and Nina popped up from FHC, but I wanted MORE of that couple. I know they weren’t the main characters of the book, but I still wanted to read about them more than what we got. I'm hoping we get a sequel featuring them since it seemed like Amy created a nice opportunity for an Ari/Nina sequel with what we learned in AHS. Thanks to Amy Spalding, Netgalley and Kensington Books. I am looking forward to whatever Amy writes next.

I really enjoyed At Her Service , although I felt some of it was a bit rushed in places and I would have liked certain characters to have the opportunity to develop more.
Loved the concept of Max following the series of things to that were meant to help her take charge of her life- I wish I had something like this 😂

This was a great read to start off 2024

Where was Amy Spalding when my twenty-year-old self needed a cool, relevant writer to produce stories that were this authentic? Probably not born, but ah, well, at least she is releasing stories now that are likely hitting their intended audience.

At Her Service is going to be released in early 2024, and I am telling you know, jump on it. Pre-order, add it to you’re TBR, but bump it up towards the top. Just make sure you check it out.

Max is an adorably sweet assistant who dreams of becoming the next great talent agent. She dreams big while sitting in a bar, across from the sexy bartender she is crushing on, and life is great. But is it happening fast enough?

When her roommate Chelsey, social media influencer, catches her on a bad day, she agrees to ‘self-actualize’ in front of an audience of half a million followers, because getting the dream job, and the dream girl, seem like something she could never do on her own.
In the end, Max has to understand that the things she really wants are there for the taking. Sometimes, though, it takes a little longer than expected.

My favourite thing about any Amy Spalding book I have read so far is how relatable her characters are. She does a brilliant job of dragging them in off of today’s streets and introducing the reader to a broken down, yet ready to be built character. The authenticity seeps out of the pages, and the mistakes that are made are cringeworthy because we have all been there! At Her Service is a beautifully written story we can all relate to in one way or another.

I received an ARC from the author via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.

For Her consideration was an awesome novel in 2023.

I love the authors writing and this cover is awesome nice and colorful. I love any setting with social media or podcast. Was definitely a great book and great plot. I love the characters and the build again from the previous book.

Its more of a queer fiction and not romance. I will still read anything from the author.

Thanks NetGalley for letting me read and review.

If you read Amy Spalding “For Her Consideration” you might recognize the main character Max who makes multiple appearances. This book can be read independently from “For Her Consideration” but I definitely recommend reading that one also!

Max has big dreams but has always shed away from making big moves in her life. When her influence famous roommate suggests a chance for her to join “You Point Oh” a self-actualizing app. Max is hesitant at first but after a disastrous day she gives in and decides to join.

Sadie the “Bartender” that Max has fantasized over ever since she discovered the bar she works at. When Max starts to learn how to be confident and “Make the big Move” she finally has a chance with Sadie. When Sadie discovers Max is working with the app and sharing all of her journey with her roommate. Including there relationship things take a turn and Max is headed towards heartbreak.

This book did not include as much romance as I would have liked but I really enjoyed the story of Max and how she develops into her true self. I loved getting an update on Nina and Ari!!

Thank you Kensingtons Books and NetGalley for the ARC for an honest review